


Still, I'm Sure You'll Do

by togetherboth



Category: Martin and Lewis (RPF)
Genre: Acrobatics, Alcohol, Attraction, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Drunken Flirting, Early Days, Friendship, Lou's Hotel Room Is Far Too Small For This, M/M, Ridiculous Behaviour, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-16 17:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21274736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togetherboth/pseuds/togetherboth
Summary: Lou's room at The Bryant Hotel, corner of 54th and Broadway, NYC. 4am. Last time he was at the Fives, Sonny saw these fellas do a neat trick...





	1. A bit spinny

It’s 4am and they’ve ended up in Lou’s room at the Bryant again. Lou’s not even around, but Sonny is. He’s only in town for a week so he’s crashing on the pull-out rather than waste funds on his own digs. Dean doesn’t care; the more the merrier as far as he’s concerned.

The room is a bit unsanitary, Jerry secretly thinks. There’s a lot of laundry lying around, both dirty and clean, as well as other accumulated junk. But it’s warm and it contains a record player and two people he’s happy to call his new friends, so that’s more than enough. 

There’s been a lot of laughing. There’s a bottle of scotch. Or rather, there was a bottle of scotch. Now there’s a bottle and no scotch. It had appeared from those miraculously deep pockets of Dean’s; Jerry prefers not to think about how it got there. They’ve been drinking it out of two bathroom tumblers and a chipped enamel mug, like true sophisticates. Sonny reckons someone should go out for another bottle and Jerry kind of agrees with him, even though he doesn’t want any more to drink himself.

He hates scotch anyway, hates the way it burns all down his throat. He’d mix it with Coke but he knows the other fellas would laugh at him, and not in the good way. He choked down one measure at the start of the night, then another that he poured for himself so it was half the size of the first. After that the room got a bit spinny. For the last half hour he’s been holding the third dose in his glass, hoping the others won’t notice his lack of requests for refills. So far they haven’t.

Dean and Sonny have put away the rest of the bottle between them but they’re fine, just giddy and giggly. Dean has an empty glass in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth. Every so often he taps the ash into Sonny’s hair or his own pocket and it’s such a small thing but it really makes Jerry laugh. He feels like he doesn’t need to actually consume any more alcohol to keep pace with them, he can just absorb it from the atmosphere. He’s sitting on the floor with his legs out straight, back against the side of the bed. It occurs to him that he could sit _on_ the bed and be more comfortable but it’s a long way up there, boy. He’s content down here, beaming as he watches Dean. And Sonny. Watches Dean and Sonny.

Right now they’re trying to replicate a trick that Sonny saw an acrobatic act do once at the Fives. The bigger fella, Sonny said, had lain on his back on the floor, knees bent and arms held straight up. Then the other fella, the skinnier fella, had gone into a sort of a handstand, see, but with his shoulders in the first guy’s hands and his arms braced across to his knees.

“And I thought, shit, that’s a swell trick!” He says. “I could do that, just like that guy. I bet I could.”

“I like those odds,” says Dean. 

“Oh you do, huh?” Sonny replies, puffing himself up a bit. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s the stake?”

“‘Nother bottle of firewater says you’ll fall on your ass.”

“Done. Underestimate me at your peril, boy.”

It occurs to Jerry that it isn’t an entirely fair wager, not if Dean’s going to be the other half of this acrobatic act, which he assumes he is. Just as he draws breath to voice this thought Dean shoots him a warning glance, and he obediently shuts up. He just watches as Dean grabs his jubilant friend’s hand, they shake on it and Dean goes to lie down on the floor.

“Ay, ay, ay!” Sonny stops him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting down here on the floor, like you wanted.”

“Who says you’re the bigger fella?”

Dean pauses and shrugs. 

“I don’t know, God I guess.”

Sonny whacks him on the arm.

“Ow!” Dean says, rubbing his bicep.

“Who’s bigger now, huh?”

“Sonny, we’re the same goddamn size! And you _want_ to do the upside-down bit, that’s the bet!” He goes to lie down again, and maybe Sonny’s a bit drunker than Jerry thought because he yanks Dean back to his feet.

“I just don’t like how you assume you’re the stronger out of the two of us, no discussion or nothing! Wait, wait. I got an idea: we’ll ask the kid.” He turns to Jerry. “Jer, you adju… you adjer…. You decide”

“He was gonna say ‘ad-Jer-dicate’” Jerry says to Dean, confidingly. Dean grins at him.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Aw, shut up you guys. My tongue got in the way of my eye-tooth, I couldn’t see what I was saying.”

Jerry’s having that one.

“Dean’s taller,” he says, trying to be helpful.

Sonny looks exasperated “If the question was who’s taller, kid,” he says, “then you’d be the one on the ground, and there ain’t no way that’s happening.”

“If he’s taller he could weigh more, is all I meant! Jeez, Sonny.”

“C’mon Jer,” Sonny’s getting frustrated. “Who’s stronger: me or Kid Crochet? You know it’s me.”

“How should I know!” Jerry says, suddenly a bit worried that he might’ve been caught staring. “You both look the same to me. Large as life and twice as ugly.”

That’s fundamentally untrue, but Jerry knows better than to start waxing lyrical about the relative attractiveness of his two very male buddies. In terms of looking strong though, he has to admit that Sonny’s definitely broader in the beam and probably has the edge, even though Dean’s got maybe a couple inches on him in height. Hell will freeze over before he admits that in front of Dean though. 

Sonny starts bouncing slightly on his toes, making like a prizefighter warming up.

“Don’t worry about Dino’s ego Jer, he can take it.” He bounces a little more vigorously, huffing and shadowboxing. Striking the occasional muscle-man pose, being silly. Dean just stands there looking at him, completely impassive except for a slow curl of smoke drifting up from his cigarette. 

Jerry starts laughing at Sonny’s antics, which in turn drives him up a gear, making them even bigger and more ludicrous. Jerry’s giggles seem to be distracting Dean in a way Sonny’s clowning isn’t. He glances down at Jerry, then back at Sonny with a strange, slightly considering look on his face.

In a split second the look turns decisive. He sticks the cigarette in his mouth and reaches up, grabs the back of his own collar and in one smooth movement pulls his shirt off over his head. Then he smugly folds his arms across his chest, looks Jerry straight in the eye and winks. The fucker _winks_.

Confronted by Dean standing there grinning at him in a soft white undershirt, some kind of fine silver chain glinting around his neck before disappearing underneath, Jerry’s mouth goes so dry that he accidentally takes a gulp of his revolting drink. Dean’s arms are… nice. Certainly nicer than any he’s seen in real life on an actual person before. It’s only a couple weeks since he met Dean and he’s never had reason to see him without a shirt before and… he had no idea he looked. Like that. You know? It’s like finding out that someone you thought you knew pretty well secretly speaks a whole extra language. Which Dean also does, by the way. Damn him. 

It takes a couple seconds for Sonny to realise that he’s lost his audience. He glances over, sees what Dean’s done and flings up his arms in defeat.

“Well that ain’t fuckin’ fair!”

Dean just turns the grin on him and says sweetly,

“I’ll get on the ground now, if that’s okay with you.”

“Ah, suit yourself you dumb dago. I just didn’t like how you assumed, is all”

Dean lies down on his back and follows Sonny’s instructions: knees bent, arms straight up in the air.

“Like this?” He asks around the cigarette still clamped in his mouth.

“Sure,” says Sonny, “but without the chimney if you don’t mind, pal. If you drop me and break my neck I’d rather not get set alight at the same time.”

Still flat on the floor, Dean turns his head towards Jerry and proffers the cigarette.

“Hey Jer, you want to finish this?”

Jerry scrambles forward on his knees. Yes, please and thank you, he very much does want to finish that.

“Sure,” he says, cooly.

“Okay,” Sonny announces, rubbing his hands together. “You ready Dino?”

“Yeah.”

Sonny gets this look of intense concentration on his face, raises his arms above his head and pauses for a second, looking like the world’s stockiest gymnast. Jerry refuses to giggle, he _refuses_. He clamps a hand over his own mouth. 

Apparently happy with his alignment, Sonny tumbles forward with surprising grace for a man of his age and fighting weight. Dean’s hands grasp his shoulders perfectly and it looks like they’re all set, until Sonny tries to brace his arms across to Dean’s knees. What they’ve failed to account for, Jerry realises far, far too late, is that for this trick to work both acrobats need to be roughly the same build. Sonny’s just a bit too broad and a bit too short and his arms are nowhere near as long as Dean’s torso: as a result he doesn’t have a hope in hell of reaching his knees.

Jerry watches helplessly as Sonny does what anyone in his situation would do and grabs whatever’s closest, which turns out to be an indeterminate point partway down Dean’s thighs. This is of course completely useless, and he lets out a yell as he plummets right on top of Dean. Dean gives a perfect Looney Tunes “Oof!” and just barely manages to whip his hips to the side in time to prevent 170 pounds of Italian nightclub singer landing directly on the family jewels. Jerry regards them in silence for a single beat, then starts laughing so hard that he’s genuinely worried he might piss himself.

“Jesus Christ Dino, you coulda killed me! Why ain’t your legs where I can reach ‘em, like a goddamn normal person!” Sonny yells at the top of his voice. His fury has little effect when he’s still spreadeagled facedown across Dean’s chest. Someone in the room next door gets upset at the noise and starts banging loudly on the wall.

“Aw, shut up!” Sonny yells.

Eyes wide, Dean very slowly turns his head to look over at Jerry from the floor. Jerry meets his gaze and in that moment feels something strange and tentative unfurl between them. Something like a delicate electrical current. Something like understanding. 

Dean’s expression says, _will you get a load of this guy? Thinks he’s the Great fucking Blondin or something_. Jerry’s not sure how he knows that’s what he’s saying but he knows it in his heart, sure as he knows he hates scotch. He stops laughing long enough to school his face into an expression that mirrors Dean’s. _Tell me about it,_ he thinks. _He’d be tackling Niagra Falls next, if only his arms were longer_. 

Dean’s poker straight expression breaks into a smile, and then a giggle, and then he turns his face heavenward and convulses with laughter. And they haven’t said anything, they haven’t even said _anything_. Jerry can’t believe it. He gives up on holding down the laughter that’s been bubbling up in his chest and lets the force of it knock him over on his side.

“I don’t know what’s so goddamn funny you guys,” Sonny grumbles as he begins disentangling his limbs from Dean’s. “This shit ain’t as easy as it looks.”

Dean is still flat on his back on the floor, but is starting to regain his composure. Jerry manages to keep a straight face long enough to say, 

“Well it sure as hell don’t look easy the way you do it, Sonny.”

That provokes another spasm of cackling from Dean. Jerry looks at him in surprise and thinks, oh okay then, _this_. This is what it feels like to be king of the world. A fella could get used to it.

“Alright, you think you’re so smart?” Sonny says. “Think you can do better? Be my guest. See how you like falling on your ass.”

Jerry gives him a winning smile. “You fell on your face Sonny, not your ass…”

“… but I can see how you might’ve mixed ‘em up,” Dean finishes.

Sonny grabs two handfuls of dirty laundry from the pile on the floor and hurls one at each of them. Spluttering and giggling they yell “Sonny!!” in unison, which just makes them break up more.

“I wish I’d never introduced you two idiots. Terrible twins, that’s what you are. Jesus Christ.” Sonny stands up and brushes himself off. “Okay kid, time to put your money where your mouth is. Get over here and let’s see you do better. Ol’ Dino don’t mind, he’ll let just about anybody hop on and have a… ow, stop kicking me!”

“Shut up Sonny.” Dean says, mildly. “And move, you’re in the way. C’mon Jer, let’s show him how it’s done.”


	2. A little warmer, a little darker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Jerry have a go at the handstand, and make more than one kind of mistake.

Jerry’s smoked his secondhand cigarette down to nothing, he still doesn’t want his drink and he finds himself groping around for a reason to refuse the challenge. Nothing’s coming to mind though, dammit. It’s not that he doesn’t want to do it exactly, and he certainly isn’t scared of falling; it’s the thought of making a fool of himself in front of Dean that he can’t stand.

How to get around that? Jerry thinks fast and realises that the only way to avoid looking like an actual idiot is to go extreme and be a even bigger idiot than a real person could ever possibly be; the biggest idiot Dean’s ever seen in his goddamn life. For Dean, he’ll be a world-class, record-breaking, grade A perfect specimen of an idiot.

He leaps to his feet, swaying slightly and jutting out his lower lip so as to appear as simian as possible. 

“Okay Deanie, I’m with you boy!” He screeches, and Dean laughs. “Wait a minute, I gotta get ready. I’m gonna do it just like you.”

Beaming down at Dean he screws his face into the most grotesque pantomime wink that he can muster. Then he grabs the back of his shirt just like Dean had done and gives it a hard yank. Of course, he’s still wearing a tie so he nearly rips the collar off, and then the shirt gets stuck around his head. Perfect. He uses the few beats this buys him to spin and holler before finally wrestling the shirt off and flinging it to the ground. The neighbours bang on the wall again.

“Aw, get out of here,” he yells at the wallpaper. “You’re drunk!”

He caves in the chest, so his undershirt sags just right, juts out the hips and shambles over to Dean looking as pathetic as he can.

“Dean, I’m scared,” he whines.

“Don’t worry kid, I won’t let you crash.”

“You won’t?”

“No. And even if you do, don’t worry. It’s only your head that you’ll land on.”

Sonny’s laughing so Jerry scampers over and kicks him, which just makes him laugh more. Then he runs back to Dean. He reckons he’s going to need some momentum, so he situates himself about a stride away from Dean’s feet. Just to rib Sonny he pulls a funny face and flings his arms in the air like a parody of a gymnast. 

Underneath the bravado he’s still worried, because it’s coming to the crunch now and he doesn’t seem to be able to breathe out. Some of his uncertainty must show in his face, because he hears a quiet voice from the floor say,

“Jer?”

He looks down at Dean, who slowly raises his hand and points two fingers towards Jerry’s eyes, then traces a path through the air to his own. _Eyes on me_. Jerry locks his gaze onto Dean’s and Dean gives him a wry smile. Suddenly he can breathe. The whole thing’s a gag again, and the very notion of messing it up seems completely impossible. Jerry reckons that if Dean had silently asked him to fly then, at this moment, he’d probably be able to manage it.

Holding his breath and his nerve he topples forward, keeping his focus on Dean’s eyes and pushing away from the ground with his toes. He feels hands clasp his shoulders firmly while his own hands grab Dean’s knees without him even thinking about it. Suddenly he’s upside-down.

“Ha HA! Suck it, Sonny!” Dean says, jubliant. Jerry’s got his head craned right back so that they can still look at each other. He mirrors Dean’s delighted expression and laughs.

“Ahh, dammit.” Sonny says, and collapses onto the pull-out. “Okay, okay, you win.” 

Dean ignores him, his focus on Jerry.

“This is way too easy, Jer; you need feeding up.”

“Easy, this fella says! Easy!” Jerry wobbles a bit but regains his balance. “Maybe I’ll just stay up here then, seeing as you’re so comfortable.”

“Fine by me. I could do this all night.”

There’s the tiniest bit of strain in Dean’s voice, belying his casual manner. Jerry zeroes in on it.

“So if I just…” he slowly starts to scissor his legs apart, altering their balance and forcing Dean to work a bit harder to keep him steady, “… that wouldn’t be a problem for you?”

“Not a bit.” Dean replies, through lightly gritted teeth. 

“Good to know.” He carefully brings his legs back together. He pictures himself, his neck and his spine and his legs, as a poker, straight and steady. Immovable. “Guess I’ll just stay up here a while longer then.”

Dean’s quietly starting to struggle; Jerry can tell by the light sheen across his brow, the vibrations he can feel where he’s just beginning to tremble with the effort. He looks away from Dean’s eyes for a split second to glance down and see if the shaking’s visible, but realises instantly what a foolish mistake that was. 

The strain of supporting Jerry’s weight is making Dean’s arms look even nicer than before. His shoulders look even broader, spread out on the floor like they are. The silver chain is a glimmer across his collarbones, pooling in the dip between. Jerry has the terrible realisation that he now knows what his friend looks like flat on his back underneath him. Breathing hard and sweating, because of him. He’s not going to be able to unsee it.

He snaps his gaze back up to Dean’s and for a moment he thinks he’s got away with it, but then something in Dean’s expression shifts in an indefinable way. Jerry feels that strange current pulse between them again, only this time it’s a little warmer, a little darker.

“You know, it’s funny.” Dean says, nonchalantly.

“What’s funny?” Jerry asks, trying to get his focus back.

“This.” Dean makes a tiny nod of his head somehow encompass both of their bodies.

“What about this?” He feels a bit besieged.

“Well, in situations such as this one,” he’s looking deep into Jerry’s eyes now, smiling slowly, “I usually hate not being on top.”

Oh. Oh no. There’s no way Jerry can keep contact with eyes that are looking at him like that. And when the eye contact goes, his balance and coordination follow right after. Slowly, horribly his spine starts arcing the wrong way, bending backwards. It’s already too late to do anything about it, he’s being dragged down by his own weight. He’s teetering, toppling and it suddenly hits him that shit, he really could break his neck like this.

Dean’s looking as alarmed as Dean ever looks, and his fingers dig sharply into Jerry’s shoulders in an effort to bring him upright but he has no leverage and no chance now that Jerry’s momentum is carrying him the wrong way. There’s nothing he can do.

Jerry tries not to flail. HIs stomach muscles are aching with the strain of trying to right himself and he’s tipping, tipping painfully over, the room is tilting, he feels sick and then -

It stops.

Just past the point of no return his legs meet a pair of strong hands that wrap around his ankles, take his weight and push him back upright. He could cry with blessed relief as his spine straightens. 

“Jesus Christ, fellas! Y’almost gave me a heart attack there.” Sonny exclaims, releasing Jerry’s ankles so that he can get his feet back on solid ground. “Can’t take my eyes off you guys for a second.”

“Thanks Sonny, you’re a pal,” Dean says, sounding a bit sheepish as Sonny pulls him up to standing. “We, uh, got ourselves in a little trouble there.” 

Jerry puts his hands on his knees and arches his back, trying to click the vertebrae back into place and reverse the unwanted stretching he just got. He really, really needs a moment to catch his breath. It’s it not just to recover from the physical near-disaster, but to recalibrate mentally as well. Had Dean really said that? Really looked at him like that? When Sonny had caught his ankles he was, for a moment, dumbfounded: he’d been so absorbed in Dean that he’d completely forgotten anyone else was even in the room. 

He’s not quite sure what this spell is that Dean’s casting over him, but he can _feel_ it running underneath everything. It’s a tug deep in his belly, a glow in his lungs. It’s as though he can suddenly feel every atom of iron in his blood because for the very first time in his life he’s found someone magnetic. He’s thrilled and exhilarated and completely, utterly terrified.


	3. It's okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonny's mind turns drowsily to his two friends, one familiar, one new. For the last couple of weeks he’s been noticing a change in Dino. Well, not so much a change, he doesn’t really change. More of… an anomaly, he guesses would be the right word.

i.

An hour later and the room is quiet, or as quiet as it ever gets. Even this early there’s enough bustle on Broadway for the noise to carry up from street level and invade their little space. 

It’s dark too, or as dark as it ever gets. Soft orange streetlight is creeping in around the curtains and turning the jumble of mess and furniture into murky shadows. A clean strip of light shines in under the door from the hallway, occasionally broken by passing feet.

Sonny blinks unhappily awake. The usual cause of this would be Dino kicking him, but this time it’s a stray shout from the street outside that does it. His head is thudding and his tongue feels like carpet. He’d passed out cold when he first fell into bed, but now he’s got that restless, headachey feeling that comes with overindulgence. When he’d fallen asleep, Dino and the kid had still been up. They were sitting on the floor and chatting in the warm lamplight, radio on low in the background; he’d nodded off to the soothing murmur of their voices.

His mind turns drowsily to his two friends, one familiar, one new. For the last couple of weeks he’s been noticing a change in Dino. Well, not so much a change, he doesn’t really change. More of… an anomaly, he guesses would be the right word. Sonny’s known him for years, lived with him on and off even, for most of them. He knows him pretty well, or at least as much as anyone knows Dino. 

One of the fundamentals Sonny understands about Dino’s character is that he is a man of few words. Unless he’s talking to a woman, in which case he is a man of practically no words. What would take most men a whole evening of chatting up to even get close to, Dino seems to be able to accomplish with not much more than a look and a smile. In the early days he thought it was magic, but now he reckons he’s cracked the puzzle: people love Dino because Dino doesn’t _care_.

Imagine that. Imagine a man as… he’d never say this to his face but, a man as handsome and funny as that, completely indifferent to you. Barely looking up from his drink for you. Now imagine winning him round. What a prize! Yeah, Sonny’s got Dino’s number: he just sits back and lets ‘em do all the work. Sonny’s got to admit, the guy’s got it made. 

If he was asked to conjure up the definitive picture of Dino, it’d look like this: he’d be throwing Sonny a wink over his shoulder as he leaves a club without saying goodbye, one arm around a beautiful woman, or sometimes a handsome man, or sometimes Sonny ain’t even sure. That doesn’t make him uncomfortable anymore, he’s gotten used to it. It’s just part of Dino, like the cigarettes and card tricks and changing the lyrics. He ain’t hurting no one. He doesn’t think the kid knows about it though. Or then again, maybe he does. Dino seems to be making an exception for the kid in virtually every way, and it’s caught Sonny completely off guard.

It’s like Jerry doesn’t seem to have even noticed Dino’s carefully reinforced boundaries, Sonny thinks. Or else he has and just enjoys trampling all over them in that animal way of his. An example: people don’t touch Dino. If Dino reaches out for you, which is rare and usually means he’s gotten on the outside of a fair amount of scotch, then fine. But you don’t just touch him.

Except the kid does. Last weekend they’d all been at a party together, some chorus girl with a pretty roommate and big apartment downtown. It was early hours, Sonny remembers, the sun was coming up and the party was winding down. Everyone was merry, they’d had a wonderful time but they weren’t blitzed or anything; it wasn’t really that kind of party. Sonny was getting ready to leave, he’d just retrieved his coat from the big pile in the bedroom and was looking around for Dino to see if he was ready to go too.

He spotted him alone in a corner, looking like he was more than done with the whole scene. Just as Sonny was about to call out to him he saw something catch Dino’s eye, and watched as his face broke into one of his sunniest smiles. Sonny followed his gaze and landed on the kid, picking his way purposefully through the crowd towards Dino. The kid emerged, reached the edge of the little space Dino had carved out for himself and then just… kept going, is the best way Sonny can think to put it. He kept going right into Dino’s space, past all those barriers, kept going until his brow was on Dino's shoulder, head ducked and face turned into his neck.

Sonny’d thought maybe he was about to witness the kid losing some teeth, but instead he just watched in amazement as one of Dino’s big hands came up, settled between the kid’s shoulder blades and started stroking slowly up and down his spine. 

It had been cold when they finally got outside. Dino had wrapped the open front of his coat around Jerry and the kid had walked backwards all the way up Christopher Street.

It wasn’t just Dino’s physical barriers that Jerry ignored. A few days ago, they’d all been hanging around the hotel’s coffee bar as usual and Jerry’d asked Dino about his messed-up hands. And Dino had just _told him_. And not the boxing story either; the real story. The story about what happens to a young dealer when some smalltime wiseguys catch him stacking the cards.

Jerry had listened to the story with his mouth hanging open, eyes filling with tears as Dino described the horrible conclusion as dispassionately as if it had happened to a stranger. When it was finished Jerry’d reached over and taken one of Dino’s hands between both of his own. Sonny swears to God, the kid might actually be the bravest guy he knows. He’d held his breath, waiting for Dino to snatch his hand back and come out with some funny line to break the tension, maybe insinuating something about the kid’s masculinity along the way. But the line never came. He just pulled his hand away and quietly said “don’t, Jer”, with a look on his face Sonny’d swear he’d never seen before. Vulnerable he’d call it, if he didn’t know better.

Sonny’s mind drifts back to the present. Given that it’s still dark out, he figures that he wasn’t asleep very long. He doesn’t want to be awake now; if he can sleep through this entire hangover he’ll really feel like he’s put his day to good use. The mattress on the pull-out is too soft, and the sheets are dry and starchy against his skin. They rustle as he turns over on his back, trying not to jostle Dino as he does so. The fella loves sleeping and hates being woken up before he’s ready; Sonny’s learned this the hard way over the years. He stretches a little and it’s only then that he realises he needn’t have worried: he’s the sole occupant of this lousy excuse for a bed.

A little confused, he tucks one arm under his head to raise it up as he squints into the darkness. Across the room the foot of the tall brass bedstead gleams in the streetlight and, just beyond it, he can discern a lump under the covers. Fair enough, he thinks. Lou didn’t come back so Dino’s taken the bed. Who wouldn’t? 

As his eyes adjust, he realises that he can just make out against the white pillows not one dark head, but two. They’re lying facing each other. Jerry’s asleep but Sonny can see Dino’s eyes glinting in the dark, watching over his friend. 

Feeling kind of like a peeping tom, he’s about to turn over and try to nod off again when he sees Jerry stretch a little and open his eyes. Just dozing, then. The kid smiles at Dino, who smiles back and whispers something to him. Sonny can’t tell what they’re saying but the low susurrus of their voices is enough to lull him back to sleep.

ii.

“Are you warm enough Jer?”

“Sure I am Dean, thanks.”

“I can go see the concierge, get an extra blanket. You don’t have to be cold.”

“I ain’t Dean, honest. It’s warm in here.”

“Just feels like you’re shaking is all.’

“Oh. Oh that’s. That’s just nerves, you know. From nearly falling down like that, I mean.”

“Sorry.”

“Wasn’t your fault.”

“Still. I feel like I should look out for you. Did I hurt your shoulders? I think I grabbed you pretty hard.”

“Nah, it’s fine. Even if you did, you were only trying to save the day.” He smiles, Dean doesn’t.

“Can I see?”

“Well okay, but. I’m not sure there’s anything to… oh…”

While Jerry’s still speaking, Dean has slipped two fingers beneath the strap of his undershirt and gently eased it down off his shoulder. 

“You got marks here.” He traces his index finger so lightly over the pinked skin that it sends a shiver down Jerry’s spine. “Sorry.”

“Honest Dean, you got nothing to be sorry about. Wasn’t your fault, I was the one who lost it.”

“Well. I think. I think maybe you wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t said what I did.”

Jerry flushes a little at the memory, observed by no one in the dusky light. He looks at Dean, gaze uncertain, but he reaches out and cups his hand around the side of his face anyway.

“You were only teasing.”

Dean covers Jerry’s hand with his own, turns his head a fraction and softly kisses the inside of his wrist. 

“I was only teasing.” 

Jerry hums low in his throat. That feels nice.

“You didn’t mean to hurt me.”

Dean does it again.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s okay.”

“Dean.”

“Jer?”

“Come here.”

Dean goes there.

iii.

Half an hour later and Sonny’s awake again. At least he thought he was awake, but as he peers around the lightening room he realises that he can’t be. He must be asleep and having one of those dreams that tricks you into thinking you’ve woken up. He closes his eyes and resolves that tomorrow he’ll go out and find a girl, any willing girl, and have some fun. Because he really doesn’t want to be the kind of guy who dreams about his friends kissing, their fingers twisting in each other’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'I'll String Along With You', which you can and should hear Dean singing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWw9qAMGrCs


End file.
